#224 : May 2011

Pilgrimage - where will you go? - pages 10 and 11

Reporting from Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire www.oxford.anglican.org

May 2011 No. 224

‘A new day has dawned...

Inside: News The Real message of Easter PAGE 3

Spotlight on

Helping Egypt’s poor PAGE 6

FAMILY

Experience Easter PAGE 7

Feature Leading Your Church into Growth Conference PAGE 9

Arts The Oxfordshire Gospels PAGE 15

God in the Life of

A new day dawns over the Sea of Galilee. Pic: Ray Rowlson

The Revd Gillian Straine climate scientist PAGE 20

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Prayer & reflection

...and the way to life stands open.’

But for now he is a figure who is almost out of sight. For me it is this barely visible Jesus that makes this scene so poignant. So much of life is made up of rubbish fishing trips, and so much of the Christian journey is straining to see across the empty lake to the figure of Christ.

But also – and this is what brings me

Becky Bevan reflects on the Resurrection appearance of Jesus to the tired and disillusioned fishermen.

D

awn is breaking and the first light of day creeps up over the Golan Hills. On the lake there are some fishermen in a small boat.

On the beach a single figure stands by a charcoal fire.

The smoke rises. The sun comes up.

The men in the boat haven’t been fishing for a while – other events, terrible events have kept them from their nets. But now they’re in their boat again. Only a week after the empty tomb, but they’re back where they’re comfortable, on the familiar lake. And why not? What else could they do?

‘Jesus calls to his friends, come and break your fast...’

‘We know the need for normality when the world is falling apart.’

There’s comfort in the old routine.

‘I’m going fishing,’ Peter had said – well, of course he would want to go fishing, the desire to just get back to ‘normal’ in the midst of crisis is something we all know about. Put the kettle on, get back to the allotment, wash the car… we know the need for normality when the world is falling apart.

Pic: Ray Rowlson

So they have gone fishing. But the waters are empty and it has been a long dark night of pointless activity. It’s almost as if the lake mocks them – there’s nothing here for you it seems to say. From the boat the figure on the beach is almost out of sight – just an outline

May prayer diary compiled by John Manley Pray to the Father through the Son in the power of the Spirit for: MON 2 Schorne: clergy David Meakin, Mary Cruddas, Philip Mears, Janet Bayly.

North Marston (VC), Quainton (VC), Waddesdon (VA), Westcott (VC) Schools.

TUE 3 The Claydons & Swan: clergy David Hiscock, Peter Knight, Angela Mann.

Marsh Gibbon (VA), Twyford (VC) Schools.

WED 4 Winslow with Great Horwood & Addington: clergy Belinda Searle-Barnes, Geoffrey Ball. Winslow (VC), Great Horwood (VC) Schools.

THU 5 Caverhsam St Andrew: clergy Nigel Jones, Caroline Wilson.

FRI 6 C a v e r s h a m T h a m e s i d e & Mapledurham: clergy Dan Tyndall, Jeremy Tear, Keith Knee-Robinson, Graeme Fancourt, Marion Pyke.

SAT 7 Earley St Nicolas: Warwick.

clergy Neil

MON 9 Earley St Peter: clergy Derek Spears, Maggie Thorne; LLM Roy Baxter.

Earley St Peter (VA) School.

TUE 10 Earley Trinity (LEP): clergy Jonathan Salmon, Cath Mackrell, lay worker Ann Baker.

WED 11 Emmer Green St Barnabas with Caversham Park (LEP): clergy Derek Chandler, Margaret Dimmick, Heather Wilson (Baptist); LLMs Elizabeth Gash, Paula Andrews.

shrouded in smoke and the dawn mist.

Later the disciples will know it is Jesus.

He will call to them, he will tell them to put their nets down on the right side of the boat, and he will wait on that beach as they come to him dragging nets so full they can hardly be carried.

back to this scene again and again – occasionally and momentarily and gloriously we realise that he hasn’t gone away and we catch a glimpse of Jesus right there in our confusion and disappointment. These ordinary resurrections are always as surprising as they are wonderful.

The figure on the beach calls, the voice is somehow familiar – an invitation is issued: ‘Come and have breakfast’ Jesus calls to his friends – come and break your fast, come and enjoy the first meal of the new day. And as they respond to Jesus’s invitation to eat with him they begin to see that this really is the Jesus who they thought had gone. In this breakfast is a very holy communion. The smoke rises. The sun comes up. A new day has dawned.

The Revd Becky Bevan is Rector of the Aldermaston and Woolhampton Benefice in Berkshire.

(The following is for guidance only, please feel free to adapt to local conditions and, if you wish, produce your own deanery prayer diaries.)

THU 12 Loddon Reach: clergy Maurice Stanton-Saringer, Béatrice Pearson, Chris Leslie; LLMs Pauline Stanton-Saringer, Michael Dexter-Elisha. Grazeley (VA), Shinfield St Mary’s (VA) Schools.

FRI 13 Reading All Saints: clergy Nicholas Cheeseman; LLM Sylvia Cummins.

Reading All Saints (VA), St Mary & All Saints (VA) Schools.

SAT 14 Reading Christchurch: clergy David West, John Croton; Pastoral Assistants Mr P Smith, Joan van Emden.

Reading New (VA) School.

School.

Sundays

SAT 21 St Mary with St Laurence: clergy ‘For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who Brian Shenton, Chris Russell, Matt are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power Stevens; Youth Work Director Christopher of God. (1Cor. 1:18 NRSV).

West.

SUNDAY 1 Claydon Deanery: area dean David Hiscock, lay

MON 23 Reading St Luke with St chair & secretary Geoff Strutt, treasurer Mr Capstik, Bartholomew: clergy Nigel Hardcastle, ecumenical representative Lorna Piper. The people, PCCs, Richard Christopher, Christine Blackman; wardens and support staff of the deanery. For a large vote LLM June Hardcastle.

in the local elections and national AV referendum being TUE 24 Reading St Matthew: The held this week. The Anglican Church in The New Guinea leadership team and congregation of St Islands.

Matthew.

SUNDAY 8 Reading Deanery: Area Dean Brian Shenton, lay MON 16 Reading Greyfriars (with New Hope Community Church): clergy Jonathan Wilmot, Catharine Morris, Pads Dolphin; lay pastor Phil Cooke; LLMs Philip Giddings, Christine Ledger, Sue Wilmot, John Ledger, Dennis Parker; Pastoral Assistant Penelope Cuthbert; Youth Pastor Stan Lyth; Children’s Worker Carol Atkins.

WED 25 Tilehurst St Catherine & Calcot St chair Peter Jeal, secretary Sue Nallon, treasurer Joan Walker, Birinus: clergy Denis Smith, Lorraine ecumenical representative Owen Jewiss, associate clergy Colam; LLMs Tony Bartlett, Michael Colin Bass; chaplain to the deaf Roger Williams; LLM Anna Heather.

TUE 17 Reading Holy Trinity, Reading St Mark: The leadership team and congregations of Holy Trinity and St Mark.

FRI 27 Tilehurst St Michael: clergy John The course on Children’s Spirituality being held at Milton Rogers; LLM emeritus Don Wark.

WED 18 Reading St Agnes with St Paul & St Barnabas: clergy Vernon Orr, Leon Collyer, Eddie Orme; LLM Christine Orme.

THU 19 Reading St Giles: The leadership team and congregation of St Giles.

FRI 20 Reading St John the Evangelist: clergy Vincent Gardner, Nick Benson, Suzanne Knight, Ali Marshall; LLMs Richard Croft, Peter Marshall, Jeremy Thake, Don Mason. Reading St John’s (VA)

Knaggs. The people, PCCs, wardens and support staff of THU 26 Tilehurst St George, Tilehurst St the Deanery. The Bishop’s Council meeting on Friday. The Mary Magdalen: clergy Adam Carlill, Anglican Church in Newcastle (New South Wales).

Michael Oke, Peter Grosse, Duncan White.

SUNDAY 15 The work of Christian Aid throughout the world.

Keynes on Saturday, leader Yvonne Morris. The Oxford SAT 28 Southlake St James (Woodley): Diocesan Guild of Church Bell Ringers holding their AGM at clergy Moira Astin, Tim Astin; LLMs David Islip on Saturday. The Episcopal Church in the USA. Fulford, Michael Patterson; Youth Pastor Ian Mullens.

SUNDAY 22 The Centre for Youth Ministry and Youth

MON 30 Woodley St John the Evangelist: Ministers’ network in the diocese. The Anglican Church in clergy Eddie Marquez, Sean Riordan; LLM North Argentina (South America).

Susan Walters. Woodley (VC) School.

SUNDAY 29 The diocesan and archdeaconry advisors for TUE 31 Culham Institute, Director John Licensed Lay Ministry. The Episcopal Church in Northern Gay. The Centre for Studies, Director Michigan (USA).

Wonsuk Ma. Pusey House, Principal Jonathan Baker.

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News

Giving out the real message of Easter Churches in Milton Keynes have teamed up with the town’s Food Bank to give out parcels containing chocolate treats complete with the real message of Easter.

More than 100 Real Easter Eggs have been donated by members of All Saints Milton Keynes Village, Christ the Cornerstone, the Anglican and Free Church and the Catholic congregations at Christ the King, Kents Hill and at St Mary’s Wavendon.

The eggs will be packaged up in food bank parcels and given to people in need. The Real Easter Egg was piloted in the Oxford Diocese last year, when orders for the eggs flooded in. David Marshall, in the Manchester Diocese set up the Meaningful Chocolate Company to produce them.

The eggs are made from fairly

traded chocolate and the box has the Christian message of Easter on it. For every egg sold, 30p goes to the Fair Trade Exchange to support overseas development.

And 10 per cent of the profits will go to Baby Lifeline supporting new mums in the UK. Over the Easter period, people in the UK are expected to munch their way through 80 million Easter eggs. Until now, not one of them has mentioned the Christian understanding of Easter on the box. Mike Sanderson who co-ordinated the donation said: “It is not very often that by people just purchasing an Easter egg they could help people in Milton Keynes, in the UK and overseas all at the same time.”

SPORTING hero Sir Roger Bannister CBE will be guest of honour at the launch of the diocesan Olympics project in Oxford on 17 May. inviting NBishop ew YJohn earis H onoevery urs parish to send a representative CONGRATULATIONS to those to the launch at the Said from the Diocese who were Business School from 6.30-9 included in the New Years pm. “Millions of people across Honours list. the world will be caught up in the Among them was Mary Games – and nowhere more so Saunders, who was awarded the than in Britain,” said Bishop MBE. Until her retirement in July John. “As a diocese we are 2009 was Secretary to the working closely with More than Diocesan Advisory Committee Gold to make the most of the (DAC) and the Diocesan Pastoral opportunities for ‘making Committee (DPC), roles that she disciples’ the Games offer our had held for 20 years. churches.”

John Tyzack, chairman of the To attend contact Revd Janet Binns governors of Enborne CofE (janet.binns@oxford.anglican.org or Primary School and Willow 01753 528672).

@

Primary School, Newbury, Top speaker Berkshire, was also awarded the THE latest speaker to be MBE for services to education. confirmed for the Diocese’s Nora Schneider, 94, a member of Mend the Gap conference is St Nicolas Church, Newbury, the internationally renowned Dr was awarded the MBE for Graeme Codrington. services to the community.

The The conference aims to inspire Dean of Windsor, the RtinRevd and empower churches their David Conner, whoand served as work with children young Bishop to the Forces from 2001 people whether they are looking to start, 2009,sustain was awarded the that to or develop KCVO. work. Graeme is an expert on multi-generational workplaces and his u books Breone wiofng p is the bestseller Mind the Gap CHURCHES and schools published in 2004. across the Diocese are urged to Hepart will in bethis joining theBig Revd take year’s Brew.

Mark Griffiths, Bishop John For more information see and representatives from REIf Inspired, wwww.traidcraft.co.uk. you are Messy Church and the Boys holding a Big Brew event, please Brigade for the onto send details andconference, photographs 18 June, 10am to 3.30pm.

The doornews@googlemail.com. cost is £5, including lunch. To book your place email Christmas survey carolyn.main@oxford.anglican.org We want your 208257. views on our or call 01865

ONLINE

For more details see www.therealeasteregg.co.uk

Gatehouse gets a new home THE GATEHOUSE café for Oxford’s homeless people has been saved from homelessness itself with the offer of space in parish rooms at St Giles Church, Woodstock Road.

The Gatehouse has been based in Northgate Hall, St Michael’s Street for 20 years, but has been told that its service, which offers free tea, cake, coffee, fruit and soup to more than 75 people on six days each week, must move by March 2012.

The St Giles rooms were due for refurbishment and the Gatehouse has launched an appeal for £175,000 for work including a new kitchen.

Director Andrew Smith said: “We’re really excited at the

prospect of the move, although it’s going to involve a lot of preparation and hard work. It will be wonderful to have access all on one level for people with disabilities, as well as a proper office and modern kitchen.

“The building has a lot of character and the architect has made the most of it. The church has been very welcoming and has listened to our ideas about the new design. It’s the new home we were praying for. Now all we have to do is come up with the cash.”

ONLINE

@

For more details see www.oxfordgatehouse.org

Church joins atomic protest MEMBERS of St Michael and All Angels Church, New Marston, Oxford are taking part in a series of protests taking place at the Tadley Gate of the Atomic Weapons Centre, Aldermaston.

In between the items of clothing were A3 letters spelling out ‘LOVE OUR NEIGHBOURS. JOBS FOR PEACE. DECOMMISSION WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. LOVE YOUR ENEMY, during one of the protests, held late last month.

As the May Door was going to press, church members were set to join in more protests at the site. The Revd David Paterson, associate priest at St Michael’s, said “We included a passage from the Bishop of Oxford’s book Love Jesus, lamenting the tragedy of the arms race. We finished up by dancing to Sue Gillmurray’s song The Road to Peace.

IN BRIEF Olympic launch

“ We think it was very effective.

Highly visual and not to be missed by the stream of drivers leaving their jobs between 3.45pm and 5.15pm. We hope they found it attractive, good humoured and thought-provoking.”

David said it was important for the Church to be involved in anti-nuclear protests because wars don’t solve anything and called for the peaceful decommissioning of arms. He said: “We have to change hearts and minds, so they are not violent.”

Creative workshops to inspire vulnerable women

WORKSHOPS for some of Reading’s most vulnerable people are being held at the city’s Women’s Centre. The Pilgrim Heart’s Trust is running classes in storytelling, writing, card making, photography and podcasts.

They plan to produce a 2012 calendar and stage an exhibition of their work in Reading town centre later this year to raise funds for the centre.

Drama tutors Jane Turner and Hayley Cornwell, the poet Sarah de Nordwall and greetings card designer Margaret Forrest will work with Pilgrim Hearts Trust Directors David and Elaine Chalmers-Brown to hold the workshops.

Rosemary King will run classes on Photoshop and computer skills. Last year the team ran a successful series of Arts workshops for the homeless in Reading and, in 2009, an inspiring nine month project Voice to the Voiceless at the Women’s Centre.

The workshops will be funded by a £8,800 grant from the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards for All. Elaine says the grant will mean the Trust can take part in The Big Society despite all the cutbacks in local government funding for charities. “We will help Reading women find their hidden talents. We’ll take photos of their work for display at an exhibition and compile a calendar so they can see how well they have done; it will give them a great sense of achievement”.

Mabel Boyd, who runs the Women’s Centre, is excited about the project “It will be an adventure for the women who come here. These women often have a difficult time, many of them are unemployed and have a whole range of problems including learning difficulties and domestic issues. Without the Women’s Centre they would be stuck at home alone. The new workshops will be a chance for them to stimulate their minds and enrich their lives”.

Christmas publications.

GOpen ospDoor els ispan roA4 ject ATTORNEY General the Rt Hon newsletter aimed at families on Dominic Grieve was one the the fringes of church life. of Stable first put pen to paper Doorpeople was antoextra Door, to producejust thebefore Flackwell Heath published Christmas Gospels. and aimed at occasional The project The wasChrismas launched by churchgoers. the Revd Chris Bull, of aimed Christ to Ingredients campaign Church, Heath, connect Flackwell people with the Buckinghamshire, to celebrate Christian festival through a the 400thtreat. anniversary of the King seasonal James Bible.

Residents, To give us your views email churches, schools, businesses, debbie.dallimore@oxford. clubs and activities – have been anglican.org or call 01865 invited to take part in handwriting 208225. a total of 3779 verses.

The completed gospels will then be displayed at the village Cherry Fayre in July. See page 15 for details of the Oxfordshire Gospels project.

Archbishop tickets AT the time of going to press there were still tickets available for the diocesan Eucharist with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The service is at 11.30am on Saturday 7 May at St Mary’s, Banbury. If you’d like to attend, please contact your Area Bishop’s office.

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News IN BRIEF Lend us a room Diocesan adoption and fostering charity Parents And Children Together are in need of some rooms where they can carry out therapeutic sessions with families.

PACT is appealing to churches with a small room to contact them if they are willing to provide a space on an occasional basis for therapists to carry out sessions with adoptive and foster families.

Rooms would need to have space to be set up informally with toys, bean bags and easy chairs, rather than a formal meeting space.

If you think you could help please contact Chris Foote, Practice Manager – Post Adoption and Support Services on chris.foote@pactcharity.org or telephone 0118 938 7600.

CCOW gets the key to the door

THE vision for the Crypt Café Youth Club started about 15 years ago, when Anne Morse first saw the Crypt beneath All Saints’ Church, Marlow.

“It was a great space, begging to be used for something much more exciting than just storage,” she says. The idea was put on hold until the Encounter Fresh Expressions congregation came to Marlow. Then the crypt was transformed into a space for a youth café and a base for a community youth worker.

Enthusiasm for the project led to a partnership between the Anglican and Methodist churches in Marlow, attracting support from Buckinghamshire County Council and generous donations from individuals in Marlow. A Youth Forum sought views from the teenagers on what they wanted from the Café.

After months of work the vision became a reality with modern lighting, comfortable furniture and a raft of equipment and video games. Stewart Grenyer, community youth worker, was appointed and the official opening last year attracted hundreds of parents and young people.

The Crypt opens on Wednesday afternoons and there is a youth club on Friday evenings, with some structured activities. Stewart runs a Beta course on Sunday evenings and Buckinghamshire County Council will be starting a Health Zone soon - a first in a crypt.

A SERVICE was followed by a party in April to celebrate the 21st Anniversary of Christian Concern for One World, (CCOW).

People from across Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire came to the event held in central Oxford. Others travelled from London and across the South of England to take part. CCOW was set up in 1990 to carry out work including raising awareness of world development issues in the Oxford Diocese.

For more information see www.ccow.org.uk.

Stewart spends time networking with other youth agencies and schools to provide the best possible facilities for all teenagers in Marlow. All these activities rely on trained volunteers to supervise sessions under Stewart’s direction, and more are needed for additional sessions.

Anne says: “As a volunteer it is a privilege to be there. Numbers of young people attending are growing, averaging 20 or more each session and plans for the future include more away days, youth camps, a trainee youth worker and additional opening times.”

And what do the young people think?

One said “It’s good fun and a great place to hang out!” “It’s good, it gives us something to do and we can meet people.”

Another added, “I heard about the open day and I came and couldn’t believe how much there was to do! It’s a brilliant place to come and it’s cool.”

Anne added: “The balance between a safe place to share fellowship and fun and opportunities for Stewart to work with the young people in a structured way is a delicate one, but with God’s grace the Crypt Café will go from strength to strength.”

Pics by Stewart Grenyer.

Making Disciples - plan for autumn PARISHES are being encouraged to plan now for autumn events and discipleship courses.

“Back to Church Sunday is a great way to welcome people who’ve not been to church for a while,” said the Revd Dr Michael Beasley. “To register see www.backtochurch.co.uk. If you prefer to use our own ‘Harvest Welcome’ resources from last year, contact the DCH

communications team on 01865 208225.

“Autumn is also a great time to run nurture courses that help people grow in discipleship. Alpha runs its national campaign and there’s a wide range of other approaches such as Emmaus, Start and Essence.”

For more information see www.oxford.anglican.org/mission-andevangelism/nurture-courses.”

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Spotlight on...

Egypt Seeing some of Egypt’s most poverty stricken communities empowered and transformed is the most rewarding part of Salwa Morcos’s job. She speaks to Jo Duckles. s Salwa visited the Oxford Diocese she was keeping her eye on news reports about the referendum for constitutional changes that was taking place back home in Egypt. “I’m checking the internet all the time to keep up to date on the news,” she says.

Salwa spent a week in the UK in the run up to Christian Aid Week (May 15 to 21) raising awareness of the poverty in Egypt and the work COC Bless (Coptic Orthodox Church Bishopric of Public, Ecumenical and Social Services) is doing to tranform communities.

“Charity would make people dependant on you, but when you encourage them to develop their potential and assist them to do that they find they will finally depend on themselves,” says Salwa. COC Bless works with communities of up to 5,000 people for up to five years to help them become self sufficient. At any one time the Egyptian Church can be working with up to 30 communities. For each project, two or three field workers are selected to complete a course in Cairo, before they return home to carry out a needs assessment.

“A development committee is formed from volunteers and from there we develop specialist groups to work in different areas, such as health, the environment and education. If there’s a medical doctor in the area we can arrange mobile clinics,” says Salwa. A lot of work is carried out on reproductive health and family planning, with a lot of classes for pregnant women.

“We raise awareness on HIV/AIDS although that’s not at all prevalent in Egypt,” says Salwa. “We do a lot of work around female genital mutilation. It’s a very old practice but it still happens in rural areas. A lot of organisations have been working on this.”

There is a programme on economic development which has two components: vocational training and providing loans to help people start income generating projects. “Obviously the main occupation in the rural areas is agriculture but in Egypt families do farming in an old, traditional way.

“We organise a lot of orientation sessions and a lot of people who do field visits with the families looking at modern, eco friendly techniques and the use of fertilizers and pesticides, work on livestock protection, vaccinations for cattle,” says Salwa.

With a high rate of illiteracy education programmes are crucial, especially in rural areas, and particularly among women. Salwa and her colleagues organise classes to help people pass a Government exam, which enables them to go on to work in official positions.

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“We have excellent examples of people who were illiterate and after obtaining their certificate have pursued further education and ended up with a middle level education diploma. We have a programme for children and for youth and pre-schools.

We are adopting Montessori methodology, seeing a lot of changes in children’s lives. We aim to empower youth to be more active in their churches and in society and also do work encouraging people to stand up for their rights. People in rural areas are not good at claiming their rights before the Government authorities.

“There are people who don’t have access to water, which should be provided by the Government.

We accompany them and teach them to advocate for their own rights. We’ve seen villages get drinkable water when we were not imagining that would happen.

“One village wanted the road paved because they said that in a medical emergency it takes so long to help get someone to a good hospital outside the village. “We accompanied people to the local authorities and finally the road was paved and the Government was the one who paid the largest sum of money towards it,” says Salwa. In rural areas some men don’t accept that women participate in public life and COC Bless is addressing this. “A number of women have become members of development committees. We’ve trained young women to be nursery teachers, in literacy classes and things. At the beginning there is resistance from the men, but finally, slowly they get used to it. What is really rewarding is when you see with your own eyes the changes in the lives of the people,” added Salwa.

Egypt: the facts • Population 80,471,869 • 20% live under the poverty line (16 million people) • Religion: 90% Muslim 10% Christian • Life expectancy is 74.2 years • Literacy: 71.4% (male 83%, female 59.4%) • Female genital mutilation is supposedly illegal in Egypt, but the practice is still widespread • Child labour: An estimated 2.7 million child workers aged 6 - 14.

• Human Development Index: 112th out of 177 countries • Egypt is the second most populous country on the African continent • Egypt has a very touristy reputation and there are many wealthy people because of this and the oil industry.

This makes the poverty in Egypt all the more stark as the disparity is so great.

Christian Aid

Taking a chance on green beans

In El Gawley village, Salam is the village association set up by COC Bless.

Joseph Tawfeeq, pictured above, was approached to join the Salam Farmers’ Association and be part of a green beans project because he only owns a couple of feddans on which to grow enough food to support his family of six.

Growing beans was completely new in the village and seen as risky, but Joseph was prepared to take the chance. His gamble paid off; the crops were exported and he has made a good profit, enabling him to buy the essentials for living and to celebrate by buying presents for his family.

Pic: Christian Aid/Tabitha Ross

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Family

Experiencing Easter A

N Experience Easter set of reflections has been taking children through the events of Holy Week across the Diocese.

Around 450 children were guided around a reflective prayer walk at St John the Baptist Church, Bodicote.

Around 150 more were taken around a similar event at St Aldate’s, Oxford.

The Easter Experience is based on resources developed by the Gloucester Diocese and designed for use in churches.

In Bodicote the children arrived in groups of 30 and were taken around the church in groups of six, reflecting on different parts of the Easter story.

The vicar, the Revd Ben Phillips said: “It’s a creative way of taking children through Holy Week and Easter. It uses different themes to relate what was going on in Jesus’s mind and life, from what the crowd would have been thinking on Palm Sunday through to the importance of the bread and wine and Jesus’s experience of being alone in the garden.

“The children seemed to like it and the teachers found it very helpful to get across the message that Easter is about more than just chocolate eggs.”

St Aldate’s Schools’ Worker Luke Tarassenko said: “It went brilliantly.

Children came in during the week last week and really enjoyed getting stuck in and using the interactive stations.

He said the St Aldate’s week ended with an all-age event on the Saturday, telling the Easter story through five

different songs.

“It was brilliant. I was really proud of the people who put it together. I hope it will happen again at St Aldate’s. We wanted to show that it could be done in a city centre church and inspire other churches to do it. The idea came from the Oxford Diocesan Schools’ Advisers and the hope was that lots of churches would do it.”

Pictured above and right are children experiencing Easter at St John the Baptist, Bodicote. Pics: KT Bruce.

ONLINE

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See www.experienceeaster.org for more details of the resources.

PACT calls for action from the Government

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BBC documentary has prompted children’s charities to call on the Government to provide more support for adoptive families.

A Home for Maisie, which was broadcast last month, highlighted the difficulties, challenges and rewards of adopting older children who have been abused and neglected. It featured a family who have adopted through Parents and Children Together (PACT), the Oxford Diocese’s family charity. Eight major children’s organizations, including PACT and Barnados put out a joint statement responding to the programme.

They stated that while most adopted children will not have the same level of need as seven-year-old Maisie, who was featured, and many will be younger, more than 70 per cent will have experienced abuse and neglect in their early lives. Adoptive parents, and longterm foster carers, deal directly with the consequences of this early harm. They need to acquire new knowledge and different parenting styles to help their children heal and deal with the consequences of what has happened to them. For more traumatised children, additional intensive support is needed and the documentary gave an insight into this work and the therapeutic

support required to help it succeed.

The statement read: “Given all this, while we know that there is good practice within adoption support services, there is a pressing need to invest further in developing evidencebased approaches and services, and understanding more about what works for children and families. For many families, the adoption support system fails to offer the enhanced practical support that they need.

‘...there is a pressing need for more investment...’

“Effective adoption support services are crucial to improved outcomes for abused and neglected children.

“However, the current system for adoption support focuses on assessment rather than delivery, struggles to develop cross-boundary partnerships between social care, health and educational services, and is severely under-funded.”

Aside from the benefits that adoption brings personally and socially, two recent reports have illustrated the economic benefit of adoption: the Social Return on Investment (SROI) Evaluation carried out by Baker Tilly and Cass

Business School into PACT’s adoption service, and the Coram report on its partnership with Harrow London Borough Council.

The PACT SROI evaluation concluded that for every adoption from care, where the adopter is able to provide informed support to the child in resolving the issues from their past, there is a social return of over £1m. This is comprised of direct savings to the State from taking a child out of the care system, and through the financial benefits to society of a child avoiding negative paths in life that might be the result of not receiving effective therapeutic parental support.

The BBC programme pointed out that an investment of £5,000 per adoptive

family could help ensure adoptions were successfulJan Fishwick, Chief Executive of PACT said: “A Home for Maisie illustrates that a particular parenting style for some children with extreme challenges is required for them to develop and grow as they need to.

Developmental re-parenting embodies varying degrees of re-visiting the missed experiences of the past, combined with sound boundary setting and consistent attention. The PACT SROI study demonstrates the striking effects that we are achieving by this approach. Not only is the economic effect evidenced in this report but also the life-changing experiences for the children and families we work with.”

On the day the documentary was aired, the Church of England nationally expressed concern that the Government’s child poverty strategy unveiled last month will not help the deprived children of today and called for a renewed focus on household income.

The Mission and Public Affairs division of the Archbishops’ Council said in a statement: “We regret that the strategy contains no intention to redistribute wealth at a time when material inequality in Britain is higher than it has been for over a century.”

It added that the new Government measures would not have immediate effect and stated: “our strongest concerns are reserved for the outcomes experienced by children now.”

While the Church supports the Government view that effective parenting, strong families with at least one parent in work, access to good education and good life chances are vitally important for all children. It believes that any child poverty strategy had to focus on household income “because in practice and despite all the other factors which affect childen’s wellbeing, money matters.”

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A lot of prayer and advice will be undertaken in deciding what path to follow, even when inherent talents seem to make the choice a little more obvious.

For younger Christians the path may have already been discussed when choosing subjects for A levels but for many older Christians starting a course could well be a part of a change in life’s direction.

There’s also the choice of college. For many some time away from home at University can be a time of self-discovery and growing, although others may well prefer somewhere closer to home, to enable them to commute to lectures, use the library for research or just to catch up with fellow students for discussion.

Studying closer to home is especially useful for more mature students who might well have commitments such as family responsibilities or positions of responsibility in the local church or other organisations. Travelling times are also quicker a boon for most students.

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theDoor MAY 2011

theDoor May 2011

9

Feature

Growing your church The very idea of evangelism can be daunting and intimidating for many Christians. Here Luci Heyn reflects on how a Leading Your Church into Growth (LYCIG) conference helped parishes in her benefice to do it well.

H

igh Leigh 2011 was second time around for some of the group from Goring, Streatley and South Stoke. In November 2009 a group from our Benefice, lay and ordained, made their way with some trepidation to a LYCIG conference at Swanwick.

A central concern was the word ‘evangelism’ and how it would be explored and explained on the course.

LYCIG 09 helped the group to believe that everyone has a vital part to play in supporting church growth, regardless of churchmanship. It showed us that it’s about remembering what our faith means to us as individuals and seeking to share that precious gift in word and action.

Our intrepid travellers returned full of enthusiasm and hope, confident that we could find ways to build on the good work already happening in our parishes.

Step one was to form a group who met, and continues to meet, monthly to pray for church growth in our benefice. One of the group framed our desire for growth in a prayer that is used at each meeting:

Father of all, May we commit ourselves today to building your Church in our Benefice – a place without walls, where all those you are calling can meet you and share your life. Help us to find the Seekers and welcome them into your Church where we can all grow together in your love.

We ask this in the name of the one you called Beloved, Jesus Christ, Our Lord.

Amen.

Supported by prayer, and with the overall vision ‘to connect with, serve and inspire God’s people’, the parishes began to consult their congregations to identify priorities for each one.

Developing a monthly family service was seen as an urgent need for one parish and, two years later, this service regularly attracts 50 – 60 people, including a number of young families, some of them new to the village.

Another holds a monthly coffee morning (offering the best cakes in the whole of Oxfordshire in my opinion!) which offers a warm welcome to 20 or more people. It’s a time of supportive fellowship which is greatly appreciated by those who attend. The third has just launched a monthly group for the mums of young children called MOT (Mum’s

Bells are bringing people back into churches. In 2009 Bishop Alan and members of Turville Church rung out an ‘appeal’ to parishioners to take part in Christian Aid Week. Pic: KT Bruce

Out Tonight) with visiting speakers, desserts and a chance to get to know each other.

In May, inspired by the second trip to LYCIG, and Bishop John’s Living Faith initiative, we will gather for a benefice day looking at what it means to be a disciple.

LYCIG makes it very clear that church growth is not about numbers it’s about people. Wendy Middleton, who attended LYCIG 2009, says: “Growth is not just

about numbers, but the spiritual growth of individuals. Individuals matter. We are not talking about converting thousands, but witnessing to those we are alongside every day.”

As we continue to pray for growth in our churches, and remembering our mantra of ‘doing a few things well’ we look forward to discerning God’s plan for our parishes and joining in!

The Revd Luci Heyn is Curate at Goring and Streatley with South Stoke.

LYCIG - what the people thought The Revd Beverley Hollins, Deanery Development Worker in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, said she found LYCIG fun, with fabulous worship and a great sense of fellowship. “The speakers managed to be entertaining and engaging. Mission and church growth is what I’m doing all of the time and LYCIG was great for pulling together lots of threads. It gave me a fresh way of thinking about things coming back to looking at how you do church growth in small rural churches.

“A church might want to change but the community around isn’t changing because young people can’t afford to live in the village. LYCIG helped me to think it through.

Growth can’t always be about numbers, it’s about quality and ways of getting congregations to think missionally.

Beverley wrote Nature of the Church, and Pictures of the Church, two courses available for download from www.oxford.anglican.org/livingfaith on church growth.

Across her benefice initiatives have included coffee and cake at Lavendon parish church, for mums dropping their children off at the school opposite, a healing ministry that is currently being developed and extra bell ringing practices because she says more and more people are heading to churches to learn how to ring bells.

“What’s exciting is that people are doing this as a witness to God. We are developing our own local theology of bell ringing in North Buckinghamshire.

“It’s not just that it’s fun to ring bells, it’s more than that,” she says.

The Revd Michael Smith, Vicar of the Cookhams, said: “I thought it was very good.

I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it. My instincts are primarily pastoral, that’s why I’m a parish priest. Some people are more missional but I don’t get up in a morning and think ‘how am I going to fill my church?’

I think ‘how am I going to minister to the people around here?’

“I was pleased it wasn’t about thinking about how to double the size of my congregation in a year, it’s about increasing it by five per cent this year and five per cent next year. It’s not about doing big stuff, it’s about doing lots of little things in a more focused way. It was refreshing and challenging to be reminded you can’t just be pastoral, you have to think strategically about how to make the church grow.”

Juliet Gilliland, who is responsible for communications in the Buckingham Benefice and Living Faith co-ordinator said the conference felt appropriate for her church.

She said: “We had just had a vision building PCC away afternoon which is to be followed up in June and will be having a mission weekend in early May. “LYCIG was wonderful, challenging and inspirational with its emphasis on prayer as the basis for everything. David Banbury said ‘when I pray, stuff happens.’ Do we lean on God and pray expectantly or do we overly rely on experience and plan things or go on with business as usual with little attention to

what God might be asking us to do?

“I sensed a strong presence of God there - it was a real blessing. There seemed to be a lot of joy around and an atmosphere of expectancy and I am sure we were all encouraged! As well as the teaching and times of fellowship with others, I enjoyed the times of worship and found the anointing experience very special indeed.

“I have also been personally challenged to move onwards in exploring my own calling to ordained or licensed lay ministry. All of our team who attended LYCIG have been bowled over - we are energised! The conference demonstrated that in line with its Living Faith vision, the Diocese of Oxford takes equipping for mission and evangelism seriously and that’s great! I was really sad when the conference came to an end and am keen to share what came out and prayerfully work on it with others in our church and benefice - I much appreciate the manual in this connection.”

Nathan Philips, lay member of the team at St James and St Francis, Cowley, Oxford, said: “I have been praying about growth in the parish of Cowley for years and the conference was a useful opportunity to take time out from day to day ministry and get the opportunity to more deliberately reflect not just on strategies but also our whole theology of church growth. It was good to be there as part of a team from the parish as that gave us an opportunity to reflect

together on how to practically implement the principles that we were learning.”

He said members of the congregation will be attending a shorter version of the course later in the year and that members of the ministry team will be taking part in the follow-up process to LYCIG. “For us it’s really important to have all this information but actually the processes that we learn we want to store them up inside but in each situation we have to listen for God and what he wants us to do at that time. Often the temptation is to run ahead and do everything that we have learnt, but actually just stopping and waiting for God is really important because without him we can do nothing.”

theDo

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Feature

Pilgrimage - your o

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The Revd Sally Welch explores ancient and more up to date reasons for heading off on a pilgrimage.

F

or nearly 2,000 years people have undertaken a ‘spiritual journey to a sacred place’.

Inspired by a multiplicity of reasons, following any one of hundreds of the pilgrim routes that crisscross the UK and Europe, hundreds of thousands of people every year seek enlightenment or healing.

They walk for rest and relaxation or as a penance, seeking divine aid or in gratitude for help received. In undertaking a pilgrimage we are following a route that has been trodden by many people before us, yet each time it is different. Each individual experiences something unique to him or her.

Right at the heart of pilgrimage is the idea that some places on this earth are more spiritually significant than others, and that a journey made in seriousness to one of these locations can carry important spiritual benefits.

Traditionally, the three most famous pilgrimage sites have been Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago. To visit the places where Jesus lived, stayed, preached and died is of great historical interest, often giving a sense of ‘bringing to life’ of the Bible. However, other places too were held to be, if not quite as significant as Jerusalem, at least of great importance.

The medieval belief that by travelling to places where saints had lived or performed miracles a closeness was gained to the saint concerned has to a large extent disappeared nowadays.

What remains is a feeling that some places serve as a bridge between the reality of earth and the possibility of heaven.

Not all these places needed to be a long distance away. Places such as Iona in Scotland and Holy Island off the Northumbrian coast are long-established pilgrimage destinations, renowned for the holiness of their atmosphere. Other sites too offered pilgrims an opportunity to pray where saints had prayed before them, such as the Shrine at Walsingham, the site where in 1061 Richeldis was told by the Virgin Mary to build a house similar to the one in Nazareth that sheltered the infant Christ; or Canterbury Cathedral, the scene of the murder of St Thomas à Becket.

In addition to the experience simply of travelling to a sacred site can be added the desire for healing, either physical or mental or spiritual. Medieval pilgrims would often travel to the shrines of saints who were reputed to have a particular power to heal – St Margaret’s Well at Binsey near Oxford, for example, would be visited by those suffering from afflictions of the eye. The more severe the illness, the more powerful the saint needed to be and the greater the distance to be travelled.

Today, the site of Lourdes receives some five million visitors a year, a sure indication that a desire for healing is still a powerful reason for pilgrimage even in the sceptical 21st century. Often, however, the sickness was not physical but mental, engendered by a deep sense of sin, and thus penitential pilgrimages were common. By the 11th century this concept had become formalized into the notion that forgiveness of sins could be obtained by a formal visit to a particular shrine – there was even a ranking system whereby the more serious the sin, the further away the shrine, with Jerusalem reserved for the most notable crimes.

This idea is still valid today, with many people undertaking pilgrimages when they want to turn their lives around, freeing themselves from forms of addiction, or failures at work or unsatisfactory relationships. This type of pilgrimage has even been formalized as part of the Belgian penal system, with a small number of young offenders being ‘sentenced’ to travel to Santiago by foot as part of their rehabilitation programme.

‘Pilgrimage is a state of mind as much as it is a physial journey...’

Perhaps the greatest motivation for pilgrimage is that of taking time out from the ordinary concerns and ties of everyday life to engage more thoughtfully and profoundly with one’s spirituality and, if Christian, with God. Freed from material concerns, distanced from the complications of human relationships, liberated from the constraints of earning a living, Christian pilgrims are able to enter more fully into an examination of themselves and their relationship with their Creator. The resulting increase in self-knowledge and awareness of God’s power and love can bring immeasurable benefits on the

pilgrim’s return to ‘normal’ life at the end of the journey.

But for many of us, making a long journey over challenging terrain is not an option.

Tied by work or family commitments, hampered by financial or health constraints, is it still possible to obtain the same spiritual insights experienced by those who are free to spend many days on journeys?

The answer for me has been that our God is not only the God of the wide open spaces and the long winding road, but a God who can be found even in the smallest detail, in the most ordinary actions of our everyday life. The most important task is to think and act in such a way that we are enabled to see him there.

Above all, pilgrimage offers us the chance to take some time away from the distractions of everyday life and focus more deeply on our relationship with God. Pilgrimage is a state of mind as much as it is a physical journey – we can take the opportunity to cultivate a mindfulness, an awareness of being fully alive in the present moment. Passing slowly through familiar landscapes we have the opportunity to see them again through different eyes – eyes made alert to the signs of God’s glory in creation, to the range of blessings to be found in the scenery that surrounds us, to our own needs and the needs of those with whom we share our lives.

We can nurture the gift of living in the present, acutely and sensitively aware of our immediate environment, spending time simply being in God’s presence, enjoying his company, being surrounded by his love.

This is an edited extract from Every Place is Holy Ground by Sally Welch, Canterbury Press ISBN 978 1 84825 075 8. To be published in June. The Revd Sally Welch is an Assoicate Priest at St Margaret’s, Oxford.

Your chance to win the latest Pocket Prayers THE latest in the Canterbury Press Pocket Prayers series is Pocket Prayers for Pilgrims, by the Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Revd John Pritchard.

This book is part of the Diocese of Oxford’s Pilgrim Project which will see churches across Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire taking part in a variety of pilgrimage related events throughout this year. And the Door has three copies to give away in this month’s prize draw.

To stand a chance of winning send your name and address to Pocket Prayers for Pilgrims, Diocesan Church House, Oxford, OX2 0NB, to reach us no later than Friday 13 May.

Get a Door readers’ discount WE have teamed up with the publishers to offer readers a 20 per cent discount on both Pocket Prayers for Pilgrims and Every Place is Holy Ground.

To get the discount quote OXPILGRIM2011 on orders placed before 31 December 2011. To post send a cheque payable to Norwich Books and Music to Norwich Books and Music, 13a Hellesdon Park Road, Norwich, NR6 5DR. Tel: 01603 785925 Fax: 01603 785915 Email: orders@norwichbooksandmusic.co.uk UK orders please add £2.50 for P&P or £5.00 for orders over £25. Orders over £75 postage free.

oor MAY 2011

11

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Heading to Wells Cathedral on their annual pilgrimage are members of St George’s, Wash Common. Pic: Paul Cowan

Where are you planning to go?

A

cross Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire Christians will be donning their walking boots this summer, ready to head off on pilgrimages.

One of the most popular is the St Birinus Pilgrimage. The story goes that Birinus, sent by the Pope to bring Christianity to the Midlands of England, got as far as the Thames valley and there encountered Cynegils, a local pagan king. Cynegils was baptised by Birinus in the River Thames, near the site of what is now Dorchester Abbey and gave Birinus land in Dorchester to build a church.

Each year at the beginning of July pilgrims gather at Churn Knob to retrace Birinus’s 12 mile walk from his meeting place with Cynegils to Dorchester where he founded his Abbey church. The walk starts with worship before pilgrims follow a marked route which takes in several churches. At each church pilgrims can pray, receive refreshments and have their ‘pilgrim passport’ stamped. At the end of the walk they gather at St Birinus Roman Catholic church in Dorchester-onThames for tea, and then make procession to the Abbey for a final act of worship. This year’s pilgrimage is on 3 July; gathering at Churn Knob from 12.15pm; with the Pilgrimage Service at Dorchester Abbey at 6pm.

For 30 years Dorchester based mechanic James Pratt has walked the St

Birinus route before it’s taken place, marking it ready for the pilgrims. “It is my way of saying thank you for all the gifts that God’s given me. People say ‘aren’t you good’ but I’ve got a lot of things to be grateful for. It’s an incredible day that brings old people and young people together. I hope other people get the same pleasure out of it that I get,” says James, who has also done the famous Santiago de Compostela route twice, once with his son and once with his daughter and two of her friends.

The second time was the year the St Birinus route closed due to foot and mouth disease.

“I’d walked the route in January, when the snow was on the ground. I thought I’d like to walk it in the middle of winter. Within a month the route was closed due to foot and mouth. It was a terrible year for farmers. I know they were having real problems so I cycled across Spain to raise money for the Farm Crisis Network.”

At St George’s Church, Wash Common in Newbury pilgrimages have taken place since 1992. This year they are planning to head to Bath Abbey.

Usually about 20 to 25 people go on the pilgrimage, organised by the vicar, the Revd Paul Cowan, and church member Terry Rayson. Terry said they begin each day with worship, usually setting off after a Eucharist. He said: “For me it represents the time when I truly relax despite any demands on me in terms of

keeping the show on the road. I love the community and the fellowship.

“Everyone makes an effort and everyone contributes something. The routes are off-road as much as possible and we see things and places you could never see from a car, or even a bike. Our own arrival services at destinations are really very special. Coventry Cathedral in 1999 was really something. We even got to meet the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams at the main Sunday Eurcharist at Canterbury in 2005, having arrived from Battle Abbey the previous afternoon.”

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Coming soon: A BRAND new map featuring 15 special places of pilgrimage in the Oxford Diocese will be presented to the Archbishop of Canterbury when he visits us later this month. The map features beautiful illustrations by artist Brian Hall.

At each pilgrim site, an accompanying leaflet will be available to help visitors make the most of the experience. Bishop John will be visiting each of the churches in August to pray with local people. The map will be available in poster and folded pocket map form in the early summer.

All parishes have also been sent copies of Pilgrimage: A Simple Guide, which follows its two predecessors Prayer and Reading the Bible. If you would like more of these Living Faith resources, contact the communications office on 01865 208225.

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theDoor MAY 2011

theDoor MAY 2011

13

The Doorpost Courses, training, conferences & workshops in May 2011.

The Doorpost is a free service for churches to advertise their events and is designed to be hung on church noticeboards. Please send your events to doorpost@oxford.anglican.org or by post to Church House. The deadline for the next issue is Friday 6 May 2011.

SUNDAY 1 MAY

WEDNESDAY 11 MAY

THURSDAY 19 MAY

OXFORD: Richard Coles speaks about Psalm 104 at Christ Church Cathedral at 8pm.

AMERSHAM: Millennium Lecture at St Michael and All Angels HP6 5DR at 8pm. ‘In the beginning was the conversation: God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit’ by Jane Williams. Details 01494 726680.

FREELAND: Drop-in Quiet Day at the Old Parsonage from 10am - 4pm. Bring your own lunch.

MERTON: A service to celebrate the opening of St Mary’s Priory, Merton and the founder of Merton College, Oxford.

Email friendsof mertpr@aol.com for details.

THURSDAY 5 MAY OXFORD: The retired clergy meeting at 10.15am in the priory room at Christ Church, Oxford. ‘Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! Bright wings’ - Gerard M Hopkins. - talk by Dr Andrew Gosler. Details 01865 761476.

FRIDAY 6 MAY PRESTWOOD: Holy Trinity Church presents ‘God: Sadistic or Impotent?

Can a loving God use natural selection?’ 7.30pm. Tickets £5 from www.htprestwood.org.uk or 01494 863627 / 868537.

FRIDAY 13 MAY MARLOW: Churches Together in Marlow are holding a ‘Walk through the Old Testament’ seminar at 7.30pm and also on Saturday 14 May at 9am.

Details 01628 471610 or tony. threlfall@live.co.uk SATURDAY 14 MAY ROTHERFIELD PEPPARD: All Saints Church at 7.30pm. ‘Of Life and Love’ a concert by Marion Olsen. Free entry.

BECKLEY: A family concert by Serendipity at the parish church at 7.30pm. Details 01865 351270.

STRATFIELD MORTIMER: St Mary the Virgin at 7pm - musical variations concert. Details 0118 933 1246.

SATURDAY 7 MAY

FRIDAY 20 MAY STOWE, BUCKS: Stowe Church are holding a celebration of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible at 7.30pm. Details 01280 813887 or jandrb@bundock.com BAMPTON: Music in Country Churches will be holding three concerts at St Mary’s Church in the evening today and tomorrow and also tomorrow morning. Details salwaypg@btinternet.com SATURDAY 21 MAY THAME: The association of Christian writers are holding a Writer’s Day in St Mary’s Church from 9.30am to 1.30pm.

Details 01844 213673.

WITNEY: Green cafe @ The Corn Exchange from 10am - 4pm. Come along to a fair trade event. Details 01993 709596.

SUNDAY 15 MAY STRATFIELD MORTIMER: St Mary the Virgin at 7.30pm - Innovations Jazz Orchestra. Tickets £10 (under 18s free). Details 0118 933 1246.

BANBURY: St Mary’s Church, Horsefair at 7.30pm. Celebration choral and organ concert. Tickets free from 01295 270371.

OXFORD: Christ Church Cathedral choir concert at 7.30pm. Details 01491 574652 or carol@ hamblebrook.vnworks.net.

DATCHET: St Mary the Virgin are holding a celebration of the 400th anniversary of King James Bible at 4pm.

UPPER BASILDON: St Stephen’s RG8 8LS from 2.30pm - 6.30pm.

‘Problems in Prayer?’ - Seminar with the Chair of Churches Together in Reading. Details 01491 671357 or michael@pennyfamily.co.uk

CHESHAM: Art exhibition at Christ Church, Waterside HP5 1PY from 11am - 5pm. Details 01494 725228 or hilaryunwin@yahoo.co.uk

Courses & special events INTRODUCTION TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND: This training day will aim to explain the history and structures of the Church of England. Saturday 7 May in Woodley.

EXTENDED COMMUNION: This course explores the Eucharist and Communion by Extension in the Bible and the Anglican Church. It is open to all who are interested to find out more about this aspect of Christian worship.

Saturday 14 May in Oxford.

INTRODUCTION TO SPIRITUALITY: This is a practical course with opportunities to gain experience in different ways of praying. Saturday 21 May in Woodley. Details of these three courses availlable from sheila.townsend@ oxford.anglican.org or 01865 208277.

SUNDAY 22 MAY FARINGDON: All Saints Church at 2.30pm. Kennington and District United Church choirs sing Mendelssohn’s Elijah. Details chris@mizpah.org.uk STRATFIELD MORTIMER: St Mary the Virgin at 10am - Eucharist followed by bring and share lunch and village Maying Service at 4pm. Details 0118 933 1246.

TUESDAY 17 MAY ABINGDON: St Ethelwold’s House, 30 East St Helen Street, is hosting an evening on the great 20th century monk and mystic, Thomas Merton. Begins at 7.30pm. Book in advance - 01235 555486.

COOKHAM DEAN: St John the Baptist Church. Organ recital by Paul Hale at 8pm. Details 01628 529861.

OXFORD: The Council for Christians and Jews lecture by Prof Amy Jill Levine ‘Jesus, Judasim and Jewish-Christian relations’ at Harris Manchester College at 7.30pm. Details 0207 015 5160.

VOCATIONS WEEKEND: 6 - 8 May at All Saints Convent, Oxford. Details 01865 249127 or leaderassp@ socallss.co.uk BERKSHIRE VOCATIONS FELLOWSHIP MEETING: 24 May at 7.45pm at New Hope Community Centre, Reading. ‘Hospice Chaplaincy’.

Details sue.foley@oxford.anglican.org or 01865 208291.

TRAUMA HEALING WORKSHOP: 9 - 13 May at Wookbrooke Quaker Study Centre, Birmingham. Details 0121 354 2625.

CUDDESDON BIBLE-READ: 30 May 12 June at Ripon College. ‘Proclaiming the Word: 1611 - 2011’. Details helenann.hartley@ripon-cuddesdon.ac.uk or sfarrant@ripon-cuddesdon.ac.uk.

OXFORD: Love Oxford event at South Park. Details www.loveoxford. org.uk or 01865 254802.

OXFORD: The Holywell Music Room at 2.30pm. Kennington and District United Church Choirs sing Elijah.

To Advertise in To Advertise Call The 01752 Door 225623 Call 01752 225623

OXFORD: Quiet Day at Regent’s Park College ‘Living the Liturgy’ with Revd Myra Blyth. Details 01865 276214.

FRIDAY 27 MAY FINGEST: Hambleden Valley. Healing service with laying on of hands and anointing at Holy Communion at 10.15am. Details 01491 571231.

SATURDAY 28 MAY EAST HAGBOURNE: This year’s Scarecrow Trail has a ‘royal’ theme and begins at 9am and runs until 5 June. Details 01235 813826.

Services at Christ Church Cathedral Sundays: 8am Holy Communion; 10am Matins (coffee in Priory Room); 11.15am Sung Eucharist; 6pm Evensong.

Weekdays: 7.15am Morning prayer; 7.35am Holy Communion; 1pm (Wednesday only) Holy Communion; 6pm Evensong (Thursday Sung Eucharist 6pm).

(TD 05/11)

After Eight: Time to reflect, time to pray. Contemporary liturgies for mind and spirit on Sundays at 8pm.

Tel: 01865 276155 www.chch.ox.ac.uk

14

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ER! WEMBLEY WOND

against ASP equaliser y in GHANA’S LAST-G friendly at Wemble to England in the answer probably an March was

prayer. netted Asamoah Gyan Sunderland striker to send an estimated goal the injury time raptures of n fans into 20,000 Ghanaia

‘Enjoyed the paper - looks great. Well done!’

Jeremy Vine BBC Radio 2

The Son. We love him!

delight. ly er saw the spiritual A thrilling encount earn a respectable visitors y. But united Ghana d turf of Wemble great draw on the hallowe underlined Ghana’s faith n the result merely the strong Christia team spirit - and s of their squad. member shared by many together, “We love to sing pray together,” dance together, ted in a Asamoah commen interview. “It recent press hearts. This brings joy to our is our team.”

Gyan’s late equaliser is heaven sent for Ghana

tes CELEBRATION h Gyan celebra the Striker Asamoa the match for Ghana during as 80,102 fans Speaking after after scoring up to its billing , Asamoah in South Africa The game, lived against England 2010 World Cup y Stadium. he could have John filled the Wemble said he wished Sunderland player his famous club performed Asamoah’s fellow team against up against his his lined Ghana for after have er the d who equalis most the players celebration dance Mensah captaine the injury time importance of ship. He is Ghana’s 85 against the underlined the h Gyan scores team in the Premier ional with ‘historic goal’ England and he Striker Asamoa internat England capped faith.

Three Lions.

Ghana against to squad’s because it’s appearances. get the chance RESPECT GOD during “I am happy wild—I didn’t team found that know how atmosphere was e else was on goal for the Kingson and the ns and we all Africa it an important Gyan told suddenly everyon Cup in South “We are Christia said. “We all respect God World dance because for the fans,” time. year’s next and he last alone. The country t God is,” maybe I will game and after top of me, but y wasn’t praying in the first importan time before the reporters. ng historic—its done for certainl ent and nation’s churches joined honestly, and we pray every God, what he has and turning, but “This goal is somethi England.” governm team.

“I was twisting against game. ... We praise is match-day, so we use I was just at home for the his the goal we’ve scored day united prayers what I was doing, mostly I didn’t know and help us of the goal showedit to us. Then the next of Ghana is the ball. to give us strength Though the making The country trying to protect does not expect nt, Pentecostal (26%). that opportunity 25-year-old Gyan s big clubs. s are very intellige nt (71%) and game.” the quality, defender Protesta s in Ghana into , on go “The English Kingson of Europe’ cent of Christian going to pass per Richard know if I was draw the attention More than 80 per weekly.

I am just but they did not Blackpool goalkee might push in goal for the services at least at Sunderland, they was attend n, player well a they am have Christia say I I ed “No, the ball, but I thought, didn’t do that, so I many of the another committ I am very young, they England, facing ating on that. working me down, but big match against so I took my concentr to do in football, so I am just got a chance, lots more thought, I’ve chance.” it, the hard.” to dance after scoring “I just wanted

healing ises God for Marvin’ pra ‘Marvellous

a team, he suffered in the Glasgow Normally, surgery a metal plate put major knee injury. but needed to have course of action, if he was to continue to was the only his abdomen, he couldn’t agree not for Marvin. his career. But, God would heal the surgery.

“I told them that his specialists, d to train, and All the doctors, Marvin continue spell at Rangers me. take day, to one had I tes during his worse. Then y told me that Marvin celebra condition got Lord with teammate everybod them that the he went to church The church’s a surgery. I told me,” is gonna heal at the start Anthony Rougier.

Jesus Christ for Marvin’s healing.

He joined Wrexham been playing minister prayed recalls Marvin. and has problem. I was the 2010 season for Marvin asked team’s push “I told him my So once again, very down, did! “I put was his part in the He I League d. and him, the Football very depresse Jesus Jesus to heal hands, and promotion to that the Lord ce. advertising and I my whole career in God’s and he told me Square Conferen For editorial, from the Blue me playing 225623 me from this injury.

Wrexham the one who has Christ can heal at that orders call 01752 I used to pray God is arrival His r time. With never knew that. at this particula take career in Scotland healing.

Girdler followed a and was able to help everyday for my Editor: Chris than 13 years same injury, I the pain just left World Cup. While spanning more full at Rangers, country to the And then one day I never gave God training, and I my taking in spells Rovers. never play again, home. But he God as me. One day I was ILS: Raith doctors said I’ll life. “I knew any more in my LOCAL DETA Livingston and r control of his playing.” know the never felt the pain whereve was this and to didn’t I goes day is Wherever he an I said. But just a abdomen. And, from that 35, Marvin from never misses the Bible. I was Today, aged never suffered significance of he plays Marvin in Wales with up, but I know day, I have share his strong plying his trade be a young boy growing He is alive. So osteitus pubis.” opportunity to continues to I know God Wrexham and are God was real.

Christian beliefs. amazed that God all things it was only a matter Marvin was witness that with as I said, for me him.

PROCLAIM to where that of time before God took me actually healed possible.

News: “I think I’m still that if the Lord r time.”

He told CBN a “I said to myself “I’m still playing.I trust in the I am at this particula in this arena as this for me, what God has put me strong because his debut in 1995 Jesus Christ can do where all r, made running decidI shows footballe Marvin 1999 in And that and in professional the his hometown else can He do, Lord Lord Jesus Christ.

— to proclaim has a local club in myself to the Tobago. eyes are on me in all that ity to with ed to commit in Trinidad and in is an opportun baptized in me that to San Juan once you trust Gospel. There he joined Raith Christ. I was fully Spirit.” happened, that Lord Jesus Christ God Three years later It was there that Jesus the Holy the situation, talk about the the water and in s of people who God, no matter no in Scotland. almost where there is millions, thousand the word “Jesus Rovers to soar. And he as an athlete was of will make a way His career began an have never heard the his future Scottish Premier he developed said, ‘Go to all way,” he said. eventually joined crushed, when Christ.” The Lord While with his pelvis. the Good News,’ giants Rangers. inflammation in world and preach he League that Marvin Doctors told says Marvin. up in a Christian Marvin grew

er ADIAN defend BIG TRINID s has played Marvin Andrew times for his more than 100 300 games over country and clubs in the UK. for professional of

Page 12

THE SON

Spring 2011

AMAZED

theDoor MAY 2011

15

theDoor MAY 2011

Arts The Oxfordshire Gospels

Of poets and icon drawers...

F

GOSPEL chapters are rolling in thick and fast from church schools across Oxfordshire.

Children have been writing out chapters from the gospels, in their neatest handwriting, for a project to see all four gospels produced by the county’s 80 church schools. So far there are just eight chapters left to be claimed by schools, from the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The project is being supported by the Diocesan Board

of Education, Bible Reading Fellowship (BRF) and Christ Church Cathedral.

The Gospels will be collated and bound separately and presented in Christ Church Cathedral at the Annual City and County Frideswide service in October. Schools interested in taking part should contact the Bishop of Dorchester, the Rt Revd Colin Fletcher’s office on 01865 208245.

Above is part of John 2, written out by pupils at Frieth CofE Infant School. Pic: Kristina Masih.

r. Fady Abdulahad from the Syriac Orthodox Church once said this: “[In the West] you always have theologians who are philosophers but in the East you always have theologians who are either poets or maybe icon drawers...”

Finally, the poet and the image-maker make their entrance, summoning us to worship God in creative ways through images and words, engaging our imagination and senses.

Chris Thorpe and Jake Lever are a poet and an image maker. They have created Touching the Sacred, a book that offers us a wonderful and practical resource for reflective worship. Touching the Sacred is a collection of user-friendly liturgies and easy on the eye images. The book is divided into four main sections, Michaelmas, Epiphany, Holy Week and Pentecost. Each section contains various creative liturgies which are accompanied by images of hands. The themes are imaginative and unusual; angels, exile, dreamer, astrologer, emergence, risk, and paradox to mention just a few.

The language is inclusive; the themes are relevant, understanding well the zeitgeist of our time. The poised images are easy to grasp and engage with, providing the viewer with a sense of transcendent mystery, particularly the more abstract and primitive images which are a delight.

Touching the Sacred Chris Thorpe and Jake Lever Canterbury Press £16.99

book comes with a CD Rom The which is easy to navigate. It has all the written and visual material ready for use, as well as suggestions for music. The partnership of poet and image maker has given us a magic blend of words that resonate deeply in the chords of our soul and pictures that lead us to places of spiritual enlightenment.

‘....we have something ancient and new, fresh and relevant.’

Here we have something ancient and new, fresh and relevant, honest and inspirational. This book brings beauty and poetry into the heart of worship. If you are looking to inspire new life into your worship, this book will do it.

The Revd Ernesto Lozada-Uzuriaga is an artist and Priest-in-Charge at Christ the Cornerstone, Milton Keynes.

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The Door

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Ready Steady Go!, is the theme for the 2011 International Christian Resources Exhibition in a year when, as a Nation, we prepare to host the world's premier sporting event, the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Just like athletes training to participate church leaders, youth and children's workers, in fact anyone involved in leadership needs to be Ready, Steady and willing to Go to serve our church community and beyond. That's why there is no better place to equip yourself and your church than at CRE. Taking disused cinemas, factory units and derelict office blocks and transforming them into modern church amenities - that's the theme of Richmond's stand at this year's International Christian Resources

Action around Bethlehem Children with Disability ABCD invites you to visit our stand and learn more about our work with disabled children and disadvantaged families in the Greater Bethlehem area.

Please come and view our wide range of goods made by severely disabled young people and purchase traditional gifts including embroidery and goods hand crafted from olive wood prunings and recycled paper.

We look forward to meeting you: stand SV19

Telephone: 01689 822259 Visit our website: www.abcdbethlehem.org UK Registered Charity Number 1097623 Company number 04383155

Exhibition Tue 10 – Fri 13 May 2011, Sandown Park, Esher, Surrey.

Following several decades' experience refurbishing hospitality and leisure venues, the company was commissioned to convert a 35,000 square foot disused factory into a modern church worship centre by Bangor Elim Church in Northern Ireland. Large London churches saw - and wanted the same.

Now Richmond are at International CRE for the first time - providing a one-stop shop from concept to reality with an in-house design department providing innovative floor plans, drawings and colour visuals.

Richmond will join some 400 exhibitors at Europe's leading annual exhibition of church resources. There are many other exhibits that church leaders might wish to visit when looking for guidance in connection with refurbishment of existing spaces, new builds or even the day to day running of their church and other activities.

The Churches Agency for Safeguarding will be looking to meet with people who work with children and vulnerable adults.This national charity works ecumenically with key churches and organisations to provide a safe CRB processing service when recruitment for relevant positions is taking place.

Once again, Autosave, who have been proving cars to the Christian community for over 25 years will be on hand to offer help and advice.

Another regular face at this year's CRE will be Fullers Finer Furniture, makers of the innovative Canterbury and York lecterns.

Apart from these popular lecterns that can alter their height for different readers Fullers also provide a wide range of other beautiful joinery services.

theDoor MAY 2011

17

Advertisement Feature

Christian Resources Exhibition EQUIPPING AND EMPOWERING YOUR CHURCH ‘There is simply no event like CRE, representing such a wide range of traditions and resources, where so much can be seen, explored, discussed and harnessed for the good of the church’ Stunning images for you to use in presentations are available from Eikon Bible Art.The exhibition will provide a great opportunity to meet up with them and see just what is on offer.

Twenties,Thirties, Forties will be on hand to help churches find out how they can reach this age group and how they can meet Christians of a similar age on a regular social basis.

Discount book shop A Great Read will give Christian readers the opportunity to hear about the range of books that they offer.

With the activity in the middle east in so much of the news at present many will be drawn to visit the exhibit of Action around Bethlehem Children with Disability.This charity works with the disadvantaged in the Greater Bethlehem region.A wide range of goods made by young people in the area included hand crafted gifts, recycled paper and embroidery.

All three floors of Sandown Park will once again be packed with colourful and vibrant stands - from architects to organ suppliers, heating specialists to sound system engineers.

Steady growth over the past decade has seen attendances rise to an impressive 13,000 over the event's four days – at time when many secular shows are struggling to survive.

Specialist zones include Churches for All, a partnership of UK Christian disability organisations who have a breadth of experience and depth of knowledge on disability issues – challenging and enabling churches to fully include disabled people.

Their aim is to help churches create and sustain an environment where disabled people can participate fully in church life for the benefit of all.

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Makers of the revolutionary Canterbury and York Lecterns See us on stand P45 at CRE

18

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theDoor MAY 2011

theDoor MAY 2011

19

Letters & comment Comment

LETTERS Disappointed readers

by John Pritchard

The fifth ace

I

magine you’re playing a game of poker, late at night. The lights are low; the stakes are high, and you’re concentrating like mad.

Opposite you is just one player and he’s pretty focused too. You put down a royal flush; that should do it. He hesitates. And then with a flourish he puts down five aces. You look at him in disbelief; he looks at you, straight-faced.

And then his eyes begin to twinkle, his shoulders begin to heave, and from deep within there emerges the most wonderful, infectious laughter! In a moment, you find yourself caught up in this eruption of absurd joy. The barriers are down. You’ve lost – and won – at the same time. The evocative image of God’s fifth ace comes from a poem by Anne Sexton, and it seems to me it applies nowhere better than to the resurrection.

When everything looked utterly desperate and bleak, when the worst thing in the history of the world had just happened – the Son of God had been killed – God played his fifth ace.

His opponents had played their strongest hand; their dark royal flush had been laid on the table. And God trumped the lot. You could cry ‘unfair!’

But who said anything about fairness?

Nothing about the cross was fair. The iron savagery of human-kind had seen to that. The only way out of this end-ofthe-world situation was to make a new one.

So God played his fifth ace – the resurrection, the foundational moment of a new creation. And what can you do with such an unexpected, off-limits initiative? You can only laugh at the reckless absurdity of it. God broke the rules – perhaps for the only time. Or was it that we discovered that the rules included previously un-thought-of possibilities? With the playing of that fifth ace, heaven and earth exploded in joy, and we’re caught up in the divine comedy.

Countless people have found that when they’ve seemed locked away in a dark corner of life God has played his fifth ace and the deep chuckle of resurrection has begun to rise up within them. God doesn’t leave us languishing alone in our griefs and sorrows; he looks for cracks in the hard ground where green shoots of hope can squeeze through. If God’s love is unconditional and irrepressible then that’s what you’d expect. But each time it happens it comes with the freshness of miracle – the unexpected shock of a fifth ace.

The Rt Revd John Pritchard is the Bishop of Oxford.

Pic: I:Stock

Thought for the month

by David Winter “I have seen the Lord.” John 20 vs 18

O

ften in a story or a news report there is a key phrase which sticks in the reader’s memory In the Easter story which we are following in church through the month of May there is little doubt what it is. It comes from several lips and - as the Gospels report it - in almost exactly the same words: ‘I (or we) have seen the Lord.’

It’s just three words in Greek and it’s about the simplest and most straightforward sentence you could get: subject, verb, object. Subject: the first person pronoun. Verb, the past tense of the ordinary verb to see. The object of that seeing: ‘the Lord’ - Jesus, in other words.

It is a grammatically simple but dramatically amazing statement. With the eyes of ordinary human sight the witnesses had seen alive their friend and leader who a few days earlier had been crucified. They were not talking about a vision or apparition, but a real person, body, mind and spirit, as we would say.

They were not describing an interior spiritual experience. They were not even talking about how it made them feel. It was, in the plainest possible language, the assertion of a fact, the description of something that had actually happened: ‘I have seen the Lord.’ And, of course, they went on saying it, whatever the cost. They had, they really had, seen the Lord.

Editor: Jo Duckles Tel: 01865 208227 Email: jo.duckles@oxford.anglican.org Editorial Assistant/Distribution: Debbie Dallimore Tel: 01865 208225 Email: debbie.dallimore@oxford.anglican.org Advertising: Roy Perring Tel: 01752 225623 Email: roy@cornerstonevision.com Deadline for June 2011: Friday 6 May 2011.

Published Monday 23 May 2011.

The Door is published by Oxford Diocesan Publications Ltd (Secretary Mrs Rosemary Pearce). The registered office is Diocesan Church House, North Hinksey Lane, Oxford, OX2 ONB. Tel: 01865 208200.

While every care is taken to ensure the reliability of our advertisements, their inclusion in The Door does not guarantee it or mean that they are endorsed by the Diocese of Oxford.

There were, St Paul tells us, quite a lot of them - 500 on one occasion, he claimed (1 Corinthians 15:6). There was the very first witness, Mary of Magdala in the garden. There were the disciples locked away for fear in the upper room There was the couple walking home to Emmaus. They all said the same: ‘We have seen the Lord.’ He is risen, he is alive. What he said is true and what he did is accepted by his Father.

Threats, persecution, torture could not make them deny it. For this claim they were prepared to die - and many of them did. I’ve heard people say that in those days people were less cynical, more inclined to believe miraculous stories. That might be true of some periods of history and some cultures, but not the prevailing culture of the first century.

The Greeks and Romans had the Stoics, who sternly denied any notion of immortality, and the Jews had the Sadducees who, as we know from the Gospels, rejected any idea of resurrection. There was no shortage of sceptics - clever and influential ones.

Remember how Paul was laughed at in Athens when he spoke of the resurrection of Jesus? When in this Easter season 2000 years later we sing the hymns of resurrection and assert again our belief in a risen Saviour, we stand with those first witnesses.

These eyes of ours have not yet seen him, but despite the scepticism and cynicism of our age we believe their testimony and in our own faith experience we know that it is true.

The Revd Canon David Winter is a former Diocesan Adviser on Evangelism, former BBC head of religious affairs, a broadcaster and author.

Audio version

Comings and Goings -

Sight impaired people can now get a free audio version of The Door by contacting Graham Winterbourne on 01884 840285

The Revd Jeremy Trigg will be leaving his post as Rector of Wolverton, Milton Keynes; The Revd Will Hunter Smart will take up post as Team Rector of Newbury; The Revd Keith Dunnett will take up post as Assistant Curate at Abingdon; The Revd David Chattell will be leaving his post as Assistant Curate at Bucklebury, Bradfield and

We have been supporters of The Door since its birth but felt disappointed by the March 2011 issue.

There seemed to have been several technical problems. The article on Men and the church misses a section in the middle and the article on The power of play seems to be partly written in note form which makes it less than clear.

However, much more serious was the inclusion in Men and the church of the quote from the Revd Paul Eddy. While we totally support his aim to approach groups that are often under-represented in church, to say the ‘The current Mission strategy of the C of E’ is suited to women because they ‘like small talk’ but ‘for most men to make the decision to follow Christ requires an intellectual/masculine hurdle’ is positively Victorian. It harks back to the days when higher education for women was a controversial subject because it was felt that it might be harmful to their ‘delicate’ brains. Most women and men that we know do like ‘small talk’ if they mean light friendly conversation but both men and women require a serious intellectual approach when serious matters are under discussion.

We note that MATCH is to be launched nationally. We wish it well but hope that Paul Eddy will not promote it in this prejudiced way again.

Glena Chadwick and Penny Nairne, St Mary’s, Charlbury.

• I regret that the production error had led to these ladies having an unhelpful view of a very positive conference. Women clergy/laity I work with would not recognize the quote as encapsulating the way I ‘promote’ the total issue. I hope my sisters in the Gospel will take some comfort - the Revd Paul Eddy • I apologise for the production error, which meant that we lost some of the text from the original report. Our software has now been updated and we hope this will minimise the risk of such errors creeping in again - Editor

Free to a good home Our church has 10 child safety radiator screens, almost new. They are designed to fit 2200 mm radiators. Contact the Head Verger. david.e.jewell@talk21.com, if you are interested.

David Jewell, St Mary’s, Slough.

Competition Winners The following were winners of the competition that appeared in April’s Door - Joyce Day from Oxford and Mr Guy from Minster Lovell have both won a family ticket to see Creation Theatre Company’s ‘Tales from King James’. Antony Gurney from Milton Keynes, Mrs Morris from Carterton and K Gutteridge from High Wycombe have all won a copy of ‘Facing the Darkness and Finding the Light’ by David Winter.

Stanford Dingley; The Revd David Harris will take up post as Rector of St Giles, Reading; The Revd John Burrell will take up post as Vicar of Benson.

The Revd Andrew Coleby has been given permission to officiate.

We recall with sadness the deaths of The Revd Edward Rainsberry and Canon Geoffrey Shaw.

20

theDoor MAY 2011

God in the life of...

When she moved to London from Aberdeen, the Revd Dr Gillian Straine had never been to England. She tells Jo Duckles about surviving cancer, gaining a PhD and moving into ordained ministry.

A climate scientist

W

hen I met Gillian she was still on maternity leave from her role as curate at Kidlington with Hampton Poyle, near Oxford. Her husband Gregory had taken their six-month-old son for a walk, so that she could tell me her story without being distracted by nappies and bottles.

On moving to London as a teenage student, Gillian immediately began worshipping at St Columba’s, Pont Street – one of two Scottish Presbyterian churches in the capital. “I’d grown up in my local village church,” she says. It was there she first sensed she may have a calling to the ministry, inspired by two female Church of Scotland clergywomen, The Revd Jean Montgomerie in Aberdeen and The Revd Dr Easter Smart in London.

After university she considered ordination but decided to do a PhD in atmospheric physics. “I’d always been really interested in the weather. I’ve done a lot of sailing and hill walking.

Weather really influences both of them,” she says. She was offered a place on a PhD course but was forced to move back to Aberdeen when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma – a cancer originating from white blood cells.

“I had six months of chemotherapy. It meant I had a lot of time to consider who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. It made me realise what was important but I hadn’t figured out what I wanted to do.

“It was hard going back to normal life having had that experience at such a young age,” she says. Now the cancer has been in remission for more than 10 years and Gillian volunteers as a ‘buddy’ for the Lymphoma Association, providing telephone support for people who have been diagnosed with or are recovering from the condition.

While she was recovering Gillian met Easter Smart again, at the Aberdeen University chaplaincy. This gave her the chance to experience different types of Christian spirituality. “I met Christians involved in Scripture Union and experienced regular Holy Communion and Daily Offices. In the Presbyterian

Church we’d only have Communion about three or four times a year. I went to Taizé and Iona. Iona is a very special place that was very influential in my spirituality.”

After such a positive experience Gillian was inspired to join the University Chaplaincy at Imperial College when she returned to embark on her PhD. “During my first year back I experienced the Easter Triduum, the Holy Week services. It was very colourful, in contrast to the stark Presbyterian Church I was used to. I had a ‘wow’ moment with the smells and the sights of the Anglican Catholic tradition.

“I was confirmed the following year by

TAYLORS (OF OXFORD)

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the Bishop of London. I got the opportunity to preach, to serve at the altar and was involved in Fair Trade.”

Gillian now finds her spirituality in the Eucharist and in Franciscan-style prayer, often spending hours preparing for the Sacrament, something that she is finding challenging while adapting to life as a mum. “I’m finding myself doing lots of praying while I’m out walking and when I’m sitting next to the bottle warmer. I keep a prayer card by the bottle warmer,” she says.

After her PhD Gillian became a pastoral assistant in Marylebone – an ethnically diverse area with a lot of poverty. “I worked with the homeless and with vulnerable women in a day centre. I met people with mental health issues. I’d not come across people with these issues before and found that they were scarily intuitive.

“We had an interfaith cookery class which was nearly all women with children. I liked it so much I nearly stayed another year, but I knew it was time to move on, to study theology at Cuddesdon College.” While working in Marylebone she met Gregory, who is chaplain at Lincoln College, Oxford and an associate priest at St Michael at the Northgate in Oxford. Her time in London also saw her working on the first edition of For Creed and Creation with PR man Nathan Oxley. It’s a simple guide for making churches more environmentally friendly and a new guide, especially for the Oxford Diocese, was published in March.

“I’d started environmental auditing of my own church in London and got voted onto the environmental group for the Diocese of London. There are so many small things churches can do. Like if you have a coffee morning, don’t buy disposable plates and cups but get into the mind set of washing up re-usable ones.”

To order copies of For Creed and Creation email environment@oxford.anglican.org, tel: 01865 208200

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